My take on the many theatre productions I go and see during the course of the year.

Sandy Pritchard-Gordon

Theatre Blog

Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Elegy at The Donmar

Here’s a question.If the person you have loved and lived with
for twenty years has developed dementia and there is an operation that can cure
the disease but will mean that those married years will be erased from the
patient’s memory, is the procedure worth doing?

This is the major problem
facing the two older women in Nick
Payne’s new play, Elegy, set in
the near future and currently running at The
Donmar Warehouse.After much soul
searching, teachers, Carrie (Barbara
Flynn) and Lorna (Zoe Wannamaker)
decide that Lorna should go ahead with the operation and the play opens just
after she has been discharged from hospital.The problem is that the reality of Lorna now not having any recollection
of her life with Carrie is more than her partner can bear.

We learn about the operation
and the decision behind it thanks to Nick
Payne’s clever use of reverse chronology.Luckily we’re not bombarded with too much scientific jargon, just enough
information about the removal of the diseased parts of Lorna’s brain and their
replacement with microchip implants from the doctor (Nina Sosanya). Instead the play leans more towards the ethical
dilemma that faces the two women and draws us into their love affair, ensuring
that we care deeply about their fate.

Of course this
wouldn’t be possible without excellent performances from the three actors.When we first meet Zoe Wannamaker’s Lorna she adeptly convinces that she really has no
idea who this Carrie person is.She is
cold and distant, “I don’t see anything when I look at you”, and it’s only when
we travel back in time that we realise her love for Carrie totally mirrored
that of her partner.Her frustration and
anger that she has been dealt this dud hand is painful to watch and the irony
isn’t lost on us that she was the one initially less inclined to go through
with the procedure.

Barbara
Flynn’s devastation at losing the love of the love of her life is
understated and all the more effecting for that.The utter fruitlessness of trying to get
through to the woman she has lost is never overblown, just as the love she has
for this woman is never underestimated.Nina Sosanya’s matter of fact Miriam
brings a less emotional character into the mix, although we are under no doubt
that this doctor’s compassionate nature isn’t far below the surface.